Ex-Microsoftie: Free Software Will Kill Redmond (ComputerWorld)

In the udev/hotplug-enabled world, your cdrom should be /dev/cdrom,
always, automatically. If it isn't, something is wrong.

Much better than the mess we had before.

(Regarding the video thing, I'd say we're better off now than we ever
were. You still have to exercise some caution, but these days you can be
sure of good function *now* if you buy Intel, and *soon* if you buy ATI.
The old morass of complex everchanging rules which used to boil down
to 'use whatever the X devs are personally using' has turned into 'don't
buy nvidia' (a good idea on the motherboard front as well, shudder). I'd
call that an improvement.)